April 18, 2008

The Pleasure-Pain Principle

I found this while going through a folder of sample writings...enjoy!

Everything enters our brain as a pleasure, or a pain. With this, one can control pleasure and pain to better understand nature, and bring more success to one’s life. Embracing both as equals in nature will enable one to use pleasure and pain as tools instead of obstacles.

In current society, people do things to not feel pain or to gain pleasure. What this quest lacks is the natural value for both. The most desired pleasure is that of instantaneous gratification, while pain is not normally sought after. Some use pain as an escape, but this act actually is pleasure-seeking, as the effort is simply a dodging technique of some current pain.

The value of pleasure and pain is to gain knowledge about what lies within nature. These principles help us understand what will move us forward and what will leave us behind. The one truth is that both exist, and one is never revealed without the other. For example, if I want to be warm this winter I am going to need some good boots. Most likely my boots will have leather on them, hence, for my pleasure an animal had to have pain. I do not have a direct awareness of this “cooperation”; consequently, I do not appreciate the value of my boots. This is the cost, it is natural, and we must embrace it.

NATURE SPEAKSNature speaks to us, and lets us know what to expect via our brains database. Through utilizing pleasure and pain we make an appropriate decision for ourselves and the community from which we live in that will benefit all those involved (pleasure). To seek this pleasure without embracing the causality of pain, will create an imbalance in nature, thus a negative cause and effect.

Nature is like man, sad, happy, mad, curious, etc. Like man, when nature is imbalanced, she reacts and gets ill. Her pain is spread because she is not alone. When she is really sick she trembles and shakes, and everything around her trembles and shakes. We call these earthquakes. Nature calls this the flu. Nature embraces pleasure and pain and does not worry about the outcome of either. She simply understands that one does not exist without the other, and both are in ever-existence. She has not grown to perceive. She has grown to know and understand her environment. She is well aware of the balance needed for maximal difference.

Man, on the other hand has difficulty with this idea. With pleasure and pain has come gain and greed. These are not natural, but manifested side affects from the over-inference of pleasure separate from pain. This is a key point, in that man needs to walk in awareness that for each pleasure he accepts; a pain is passed along, naturally. Instead, man has developed an ignorance of pain, and/or a fear of pain, and chooses to stay far away from it, thus suppressing his disdain for pain...an unnatural cycle.

AWARENESSUnderstanding your surroundings, and the causes and effects involved, is awareness. The best example of awareness is in athletics. Some athletes call heightened awareness, being in the “zone.” This is a time where the athlete knows what it going to happen before it happens. He/she reacts before the action. He/she becomes one with his environment and creates a world around him. All around us are causes and effects, pains and pleasures. How we walk with these realities determines the level of our awareness. If I am fully aware of my surroundings, my actions, and the actions around me, and I bare character and conscience, then I will support nature and enable it to flow. If I am able to live by moral virtue of truth of nature, then I will not dismiss what is happening in reality. I will not allow a preconceived notion to influence what is truly happening around me. Pure truth of nature will be my influence, and guide me through future experiences.

Awareness comes from within, then we project outward. Yet today many of us come from outside-in. We rely on perceptions to mold us, shape us, and tell us who we are. All the while, we feel empty, except for those moments when we drop perceptions and value the moment, and enter the “zone,” a higher state of awareness.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHERI believe the balance and inclusion of these ideas will manifest one’s true being. The awareness of pleasure and pain and their importance in accordance with nature, enables one to experience true reality. Sacrifice of perceived reality and surrendering to nature moves the entire universe forward. Industry is not a variable in natural growth, yet today we base ourselves on industry growth. A unique potential is discovered when one honors the knowledge already in existence within them, and applies the natural laws into their own life and holds others to the same laws. The book is in front of us, but it needs to opened and read. Becoming one within (which we already are) is manifest destiny and true reality. Discipline is a necessary variable in maintaining excellence in our responsibility as humans. And, we must experience both pleasure and pain to be whole.